I’ve written about robots coming to destroy us — yes, in jest — in a few of my books as well as this blog. It’s silly, sure; but it’s most likely going to happen and probably before anyone wakes up to realize it. Time to throw myself into Full Robot Panic Mode!

Before getting all grim and dire, I do love robots.

When I was a wee tot, my parents would put me to bed at 7:00 PM every night. One night, my mom yelled out, “Danny! Get up! There’s a robot on TV!” I broke the speed of light to get there, sit down 2 inches in front of our B&W TV, and watched one of my favorite childhood shows, Lost In Space.

Of course, the robot was my favorite. Still to this day!

That was before I knew their evil potential.

The problem isn’t your everyday robot. Robots that built cars, they’re cool. The robots I have in my garage are cool as well. And they’d be cooler if I had the time to finish them.

I’ve participated in the FIRST Robotics League as a mentor, and have also been a judge in the Lego League.

What terrifies me is the potential for the military-industrial complex to build and deploy robots designed to kill human beings.

Lamentably, war is a necessary evil. The nature of human beings is such that evils like war aren’t going away any time soon. Maybe someday, but even if the most optimistic of stories, legends, and fables, people do evil things. Carrying out those deeds with non-thinking robots is just twisted.

Recently, the Human Rights Watch put up a White House petition (click here) to urge President Obama not to develop killer robots for the battlefield. I won’t sign that online petition, because I think it’s pandering; effective political change requires footwork in the real world. Trust me, no child anywhere has been saved by some well-meaning individual liking a Facebook post.

Even if the military doesn’t invent killer robots (and good luck wishing that), the robot apocalypse may not be limited to the battlefield.

Recently I read an article about something called the technological singularity. It’s a wondrous term: It sounds important, technical, and obviously anyone using the term really knows what they’re talking about.

To put it quickly, the technological singularity is a point in time when human technology becomes self-aware. That, too, is inevitable.

As processors continue their exponential growth in power, and Moore’s Law continues to prove true, there is a point in the not-too-distant future when the singularity will be born. That superintelligence signals the end of the human race as we know it. Bluntly, it means humans will be too stupid to compete.

Predictions for the technological singularity’s dawn range from 2030 through 2045, given the predictability of Moore’s Law. Some experts predict it could be sooner. Perhaps somewhere on some university campus the experiments are beginning even now. So White House petition or no, the robots are coming, the robots are coming.